Kathy Sierra

Please read Kathy Sierra’s post where she explains why she isn’t giving her planned talks at O’Reilly’s ETech conference this week. She has received a number of death threats from anonymous commentors on various blogs and has therefore decided to cancel all speaking engagements and stay at home. And who can blame her for that.

I’m disgusted by what I read on Kathy’s blog. It’s appalling that people think that this is an acceptable way to behave.

But, to be honest, I’m not surprised by it. When you take the casual misogyny that is still common in our society and add it to the anonymity that blogging can give people, then it was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

That doesn’t, of course, mean that we can just accept it. Something has to be done. And, in my opinion, the best approach is to promote a policy of zero tolerance for sexism and misogyny. Too many of us turn a blind eye to it. I know I’ve been guilty of this in the past. When you hear someone in the office making a lewd comment about a woman walking past, it’s far easier to close your eyes and groan inwardly than to call him out for being the neanderthal fuckwit that he is. Here’s a recent example that makes me shudder with embarassment when I think of it.

Last summer I was invited for a drink with my agent and some of the other contractors from the bank. We were in an All Bar One. We had an attractive woman giving us table service. At one point she took our order but realised that they had run out of what I had ordered. She came back to the table and asked me to change my order, which I did. The contractor sitting next to me didn’t hear our conversation but was obviously a little jealous that I had received some individual attention so he asked me what had happened. I told him. He then smiled and said:

Did she ask you to fuck her up the arse as well?

I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. I know what I should have done. I should have given him a swift lesson in sexual politics and explained in no uncertain terms why what he had just said was totally unacceptable.

I didn’t though. To my eternal shame I just muttered something nondescript and turned back to my conversation. Before too long I was too uncomfortable to stay there and went home.

That’s an extreme example, but something like that happens to most of us quite often. And ignoring it is not the right approach. Ignoring it is tantamount to condoning it.

Ignoring it leads to confident, intelligent women like Kathy Sierra barricaded at home fearing for their lives.

This must stop.

Update: More on this from the BBC and the Guardian technology blog.